Selective Breeding

• Decorative plants


  • Have big or unusual flowers
• Selective Breeding


  • Simple process
  • Involves selecting plants or animals with desired characteristics
  • Develops features that are desired in the population
  • Used to improve yields in farming
  • Has been practiced for thousands of years
  • Can lead to a reduction in the gene pool
  • May cause health problems due to limited gene pool
  • Can result in susceptibility to certain defects due to inbreeding
  • Can lead to serious problems in case of new diseases due to lack of variation in the population
• Selective breeding has been practiced for thousands of years and has led to the development of elite crops from wild plants and domesticated animals like cows and dogs
• Crops

  • Have disease resistance
  • Produce higher yields
• Reduction in the gene pool

  Less chance of any resistant alleles being present in the population
• Reduction in the gene pool


  More chance of organisms inheriting harmful genetic defects
• Selective Breeding

  1. Select the plants or animals with desired characteristics and breed them together to get the best possible offspring

  2. Develop features that are desired in the population

  3. Improve yields by breeding together individuals with the best characteristics for producing meat or other desired traits

  4. Repeat the process over several generations to strengthen the desirable traits in the offspring
• Dogs

  • Have good temperament